1. Field of the Invention
The disclosures herein relate to an image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
A liquid-jet-type image forming apparatus squirts ink from print head nozzles onto a print sheet transferred by a transfer belt to perform printing. In such an image forming apparatus, it may be desirable to prevent the print head nozzles from drying, thereby maintaining proper ink squirt conditions. There is an inkjet-type image forming apparatus that periodically performs an action of squirting ink (i.e., non-printing discharge) from nozzles on a mandatory basis toward areas outside a print sheet (see Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2009-111909, for example). Such an action may be performed between print sheets during a print operation or on a print sheet.
In a conventional flushing system, non-printing discharge from all the nozzles is directed toward a hole provided in the transfer belt. Specifically, non-printing discharge for all the nozzles is performed between two adjacent print sheets. If the space between two adjacent print sheets is not as large as the area size required for the non-printing discharge of all the nozzles, non-printing discharge is not performed.
In order to perform non-printing discharge between print sheets in the most efficient manner, all the nozzles of all the heads may perform non-printing discharge at a single space between two print sheets. To this end, however, the hole in the transfer belt may need to be enlarged. Alternatively, non-printing discharge may be performed between paper sheets by shortening the intervals of holes provided in the transfer belt. Such an arrangement for efficient non-printing discharge attained by modifying a transfer belt, however, may result in the strength of the belt being lowered. Also, the adherence of a print sheet to the belt on the travel path may be weakened. Moreover, the performance of an image forming apparatus may be further improved to shorten the intervals of print sheets. In such a case, efficient non-printing discharge can no longer be performed.
Accordingly, it may be preferable to provide an image forming apparatus that can perform efficient non-printing discharge even if the intervals of recording media (e.g., print sheets) are shortened.